The War of Independence

by John Fiske

There was one person, however, who was far from satisfied with this result, and that was George III. He was opposed to parliamentary reform for much the same reason that the Old Whigs were opposed to it, because he felt that it threatened him with political ruin. The Old Whigs needed the rotten boroughs in order to maintain their own control over Parliament and the country. The king needed them because he felt himself able to wrest them from the Old Whigs by intrigue and corruption, and thus hoped to build up his own power. He believed, with good reason, that the suppression of the rotten boroughs and the granting of fair and equal representation would soon put a stronger curb upon the crown than ever. Accordingly there were no men whom he dreaded and wished to put down so much as the New Whigs; and he felt that in the repeal of the Stamp Act, no matter on what ground, they had come altogether too near winning a victory. He felt that this outrageous doctrine that people must not be taxed except by their representatives needed to be sternly rebuked, and thus he found himself in the right sort of temper for picking a fresh quarrel with the Americans.

Charles Townshend and his revenue acts, 1767.

Lord North.

An occasion soon presented itself. One of the king's devices for breaking down the system of cabinet government was to select his ministers from different parties, so that they might be unable to work harmoniously together. Owing to the peculiar divisions of parties in Parliament he was for some years able to carry out this policy, and while his cabinets were thus weak and divided, he was able to use his control of patronage with telling effect. In July, 1766, he got rid of Lord Rockingham and his Old Whigs, and formed a new ministry made up from all parties. It contained Pitt, who had now, as Earl of Chatham, gone into the House of Lords, and at the same time Charles Townshend, as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Townshend, a brilliant young man, without any political principles worth mentioning, was the most conspicuous among a group of wire-pullers who were coming to be known as "the king's friends." Serious illness soon kept Chatham at home, and left Townshend all-powerful in the cabinet, because he was bold and utterly unscrupulous and had the king to back him. His audacity knew no limits, and he made up his mind that the time had come for gathering all the disputed American questions, as far as possible, into one bundle, and disposing of them once for all. So in May, 1767, he brought forward in Parliament a series of acts for raising and applying a revenue in America. The colonists, he said, had objected to a direct tax, but they had often submitted to port duties, and could not reasonably refuse to do so again. Duties were accordingly to be laid on glass, paper, lead, and painter's colours; on wine, oil, and fruits, if carried directly to America from Spain and Portugal; and especially on tea. A board of commissioners was to be established at Boston, to superintend the collection of revenue throughout the colonies, and writs of assistance were to be expressly legalized. The salaries of these commissioners were to be paid out of the revenue thus collected. Governors, judges, and crown-attorneys were to be made independent of the colonial legislatures by having their salaries paid by the crown out of this same fund. A small army was also to be kept up; and if after providing for these various expenses, any surplus remained, it could be used by the crown in giving pensions to Americans and thus be made to serve as a corruption-fund. These measures were adopted on the 29th of June, and as if to refute anybody who might be inclined to think that rashness could no further go, Townshend accompanied them with a special act directed against the New York legislature, which had refused to obey an order concerning the quartering of troops. By way of punishment, Townshend now suspended the legislature. A few weeks after carrying these measures Townshend died of a fever, and his place was taken by Lord North, eldest son of the Earl of Guilford. North was thirty-five years of age. He was amiable and witty, and an excellent debater, but without force of will. He let the king rule him, and was at the same time able to show a strong hand in the House of Commons, so that the king soon came to regard him as a real treasure. Soon after North's appointment, Lord Chatham and other friends of America in the cabinet resigned their places and were succeeded by friends of the king. From 1768 to 1782 George III. was to all intents and purposes his own prime minister, and contrived to keep a majority in Parliament. During those fourteen years the American question was uppermost, and his policy was at all hazards to force the colonists to abandon their position that taxation must go hand in hand with representation.

What the Townshend acts really meant.

This purpose was already apparent in Charles Townshend's acts. They were not at all like previous acts imposing port duties to which the Americans had submitted. British historians sometimes speak of the American Revolution as an affair which grew out of a mere dispute about money; and even among Americans, in ordinary conversation and sometimes in current literature, the unwillingness of our forefathers to pay a tax of threepence a pound on tea is mentioned without due reference to the attendant circumstances which made them refuse to pay such a tax. We cannot hope to understand the fierce wrath by which they were animated unless we bear in mind not only the simple fact of the tax, but also the spirit in which it was levied and the purpose for which the revenue was to be used. The Molasses Act threatening the ruin of New England commerce was still on the statute-book, and commissioners, armed with odious search-warrants for enforcing this and other tyrannical laws, were on their way to America. For more than half a century the people had jealously guarded against the abuse of power by the royal governors by making them dependent upon the legislatures for their salaries. Now they were all at once to be made independent, so that they might even dismiss the legislatures, and if need be call for troops to help them. The judges, moreover, with their power over men's lives and property, were no longer to be responsible to the people. If these changes were to be effected, it would be nothing less than a revolution by which the Americans would be deprived of their liberty. And, to crown all, the money by which this revolution was to be brought about was to be contributed in the shape of port duties by the Americans themselves! To expect our forefathers to submit to such legislation as this was about as sensible as it would have been to expect them to obey an order to buy halters and hang themselves.

When the news of the Townshend acts reached Massachusetts, the assembly at its next session took a decided stand. Besides a petition to the king and letters to several leading British statesmen, it issued a circular letter addressed to the other twelve colonies, asking for their friendly advice and coöperation with reference to the Townshend measures. These papers were written by Samuel Adams. The circular letter was really an invitation to the other colonies to concert measures of resistance if it should be found necessary. It enraged the king, and presently an order came across the ocean to Francis Bernard, royal governor of Massachusetts, to demand of the assembly that it rescind its circular letter, under penalty of instant dissolution. Otis exclaimed that Great Britain had better rescind the Townshend acts if she did not wish to lose her colonies. The assembly decided, by a vote of 92 to 17, that it would not rescind. This flat defiance was everywhere applauded. The assemblies of the other colonies were ordered to take no notice of the Massachusetts circular, but the order was generally disobeyed, and in several cases the governors turned the assemblies out of doors. The atmosphere of America now became alive with politics; more meetings were held, more speeches made, and more pamphlets printed, than ever before.

The quarrel was not between England and America, but between George III. and the principles which the Americans maintained.

In England the dignified and manly course of the Americans was generally greeted with applause by Whigs of whatever sort, except those who had come into the somewhat widening circle of "the king's friends." The Old Whigs,—Burke, Fox, Conway, Savile, Lord John Cavendish, and the Duke of Richmond; and the New Whigs,—Chatham, Shelburne, Camden, Dunning, Barré, and Beckford; steadily defended the Americans throughout the whole of the Revolutionary crisis, and the weight of the best intelligence in the country was certainly on their side. Could they have acted as a united body, could Burke and Fox have joined forces in harmony with Chatham and Shelburne, they might have thwarted the king and prevented the rupture with America. But George III. profited by the hopeless division between these two Whig parties; and as the quarrel with America grew fiercer, he succeeded in arraying the national pride to some extent upon his side and against the Whigs. This made him feel stronger and stimulated his zeal against the Americans. He felt that if he could first crush Whig principles in America, he could then turn and crush them in England. In this he was correct, except that he miscalculated the strength of the Americans. It was the defeat of his schemes in America that ensured their defeat in England. It is quite wrong and misleading, therefore, to remember the Revolutionary War as a struggle between the British people and the American people. It was a struggle between two hostile principles, each of which was represented in both countries. In winning the good fight, our forefathers won a victory for England as well as for America. What was crushed was George III. and the kind of despotism which he wished to fasten upon America in order that he might fasten it upon England. If the memory of George III. deserves to be execrated, it is especially because he succeeded in giving to his own selfish struggle for power the appearance of a struggle between the people of England and the people of America; and in so doing, he sowed seeds of enmity and distrust between two glorious nations that, for their own sakes and for the welfare of mankind, ought never for one moment to be allowed to forget their brotherhood. Time, however, is rapidly repairing the damage which George III.'s policy wrought, and it need in nowise disturb our narrative. In this brief sketch we must omit hundreds of interesting details; but, if we would look at things from the right point of view, we must bear in mind that every act of George III., from 1768 onward, which brought on and carried on the Revolutionary War, was done in spite of the earnest protest of many of the best people in England; and that the king's wrong-headed policy prevailed only because he was able, through corrupt methods, to command a parliament which did not really represent the people. Had the principles in support of which Lord Chatham joined hands with Samuel Adams for one moment prevailed, the king's schemes would have collapsed like a soap-bubble.

As it was, in 1768 the king succeeded, in spite of strong opposition, in carrying his point. He saw that the American colonies were disposed to resist the Townshend acts, and that in this defiant attitude Massachusetts was the ringleader. The Massachusetts circular pointed toward united action on the part of the colonies. Above all things it was desirable to prevent any such union, and accordingly the king decided to make his principal attack upon Massachusetts, while dealing more kindly with the other colonies. Thus he hoped Massachusetts might be isolated and humbled, and in this belief he proceeded faster and more rashly than if he had supposed himself to be dealing with a united America. In order to catch Samuel Adams and James Otis, and get them sent over to England for trial, he attempted to revive an old statute of Henry VIII. about treason committed abroad; and in order to enforce the revenue laws in spite of all opposition, he ordered troops to be sent to Boston.